Telling Stories, Talking Craft: Conversations with Contemporary Writers

Publisher Marketing: TELLING STORIES, TALKING CRAFT is a collection of fifteen conversations with some of the finest contemporary fiction writers. These distinguished authors discuss their lives and their craft in candid, thought-provoking interviews from the pages of SYCAMORE REVIEW, Purdue University's international journal of literature, opinion and the arts. CHARLES BAXTER on the myth of productivity KATE BERNHEIMER on taking women seriously LARRY BROWN on happy endings ROBERT OLEN BUTLER on war and fear MICHAEL CHABON on his reputation in Finland LAN SAMANTHA CHANG on fiction since 9/11 PETER HO DAVIES on kitchen sink drafts ANDRE DUBUS III on bartending RICHARD FORD on getting in fistfights JANE HAMILTON on landscape and Home Depot NICK HORNBY on The Da Vinci Code HA JIN on being called a traitor NAMI MUN on fictional gaps BENJAMIN PERCY on zombies and cemeteries STEVE YARBROUGH on rejection and the South PLUS: MICHAEL MARTONE on the art of the literary interview full index of craft terms CHRISTOPHER FELICIANO ARNOLD has written for Playboy, Ecotone, Northwest Review, and other magazines. His fiction has received awards from The Atlantic Monthly and The National Society of Arts and Letters, and special mention in the Pushcart Prize anthology. ANTHONY COOK grew up in Cincinnati and now lives in Lafayette, Indiana. He has worked for the Las Vegas Sun and the Cincinnati Post, and now teaches writing at Purdue University. Contributor Bio:  Cook, Anthony Tony has been a writer all his life, although his chosen profession lies elsewhere. What's relevant here is that he became a father relatively late in life. Accordingly, when his two kids were born, his lifestyle was less hectic, more relaxed, and afforded more time than is normally the case. He did what many parents do, or at least would like to do if they could squeeze it in, and that's write down the funny, warm things the kids did and said before he forgot them. It was such fun that he did it extensively - 350 notes over a 5-month period - and it didn't matter that the end was never in sight, nor that there was no assurance that a manuscript might even be possible. He persevered, and built the generality that the many stories illustrate, and here it is. Tony lives with his family by a small lake in the Gatineau Hills, an hour north of Ottawa.